


Going Somewhere

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crushes, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 01:36:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4372097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for a prompt on tumblr. Alex has her eye on one of the campus coffee shop's regulars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> for tumblr user justlikeswitchblades, hope you like!

Things have their way of settling into a routine; by the end of her first month working at the coffee shop on campus Alex feels as if she’s been there forever. She operates all the machines on autopilot and can remember the specifics of each customer’s orders, all the abbreviations, and where all the ingredients are located. She knows the regulars on her shifts and their orders by heart; she knows where they sit and how often they get their drinks to stay.

Most of them usually have class or work or something a couple of days a week and rush out to that, but one customer doesn’t. Every day Masako (if that’s her real name—it’s the one she gives at the register) gets a green tea and sits at one of the corner tables with her textbooks spread all around; she stays for a couple of hours (and usually Alex will come by to add hot water and re-steep her tea leaves once or twice) and when she leaves it’s quiet; Alex usually doesn’t notice her place her mug and tea press with the other dishes and pack up and slip out until she’s gone and the front door is closed even though she looks over there more often than she’d like to.

And she can’t help it; even when she’s busy juggling five macchiatos and a dirty chai she can’t help pushing her glasses up and glancing over at Masako’s head bent over her textbook, the strong hands with impeccably-kept nails at the corner of the page and she wishes it wasn’t so damn dark in here so she could see better (at least when she’s up close and delivering the refilled tea press she can see the shadows of Masako’s thick lashes on her face, her hair falling over her ears, strands escaping her short ponytail). Masako’s not even that nice to her (she’s not nice to anyone, though); she’s always short and curt with her orders and requests for a refill and she gives her thanks in quick nods—she does tip well, but Alex has never managed to start a real conversation with her or even get a smile. Still, Masako doesn’t shut her down outright; she’s polite (almost professionally so) and never seems uncomfortable, and she keeps coming back and staying, and that’s enough to keep Alex’s hope alive.

Hope for what, though? Most of the other baristas flirt casually with customers, and Alex supposes this is what she wants to do, but this feels dangerously like a genuine crush, a fascination rather than a passing fancy. They barely know each other (Masako probably doesn’t even know her name); they haven’t even actually flirted; this might just be the allure of Masako shutting her down crisply like a barely-open window and nothing about her in particular. But still, it is about her; her ears are small and delicate and soft-looking and she looks so intense when she’s studying and Alex doesn’t feel this way toward any of the other regulars who are this way with her (probably because it’s the morning and they’re not caffeinated yet) and this is such a fucking mess and there’s no reason she should be analyzing her feelings like this. She usually doesn’t, just lets them take her where they go—but the lack of progress or even setbacks or rejection, the stagnancy that feels like a hot summer day back in Houston with the moisture in the air pressing down on her head, is making her antsy and impatient and looking for a tiny crack in Masako’s delicately-constructed façade where she can just slip something, anything through.

But the day Alex decides she’s just going to get over this, whatever the hell it is, the perfect opportunity arises. It’s a slower hour, the Friday before a long weekend when half the students have checked out early, to hell with grades and their professors’ opinions. The shop is quiet, even with the dim cheesy lounge jazz playlist on (the manager has terrible taste in music but she’s the boss and she’s here right now, manning the register, or at least on standby for whenever the next customer shows up) and most of the seats are clean and empty. Masako is in hers, right on schedule, some kind of math or physics textbook open on the table in front of her. Alex stops by to check on her tea; she’s only half-finished with her mug. Masako’s gaze flickers up into Alex’s face; their eyes lock. Alex looks away first, eyes drifting down to Masako’s phone face down on the table—the case is decorated with basketballs. And then everything clicks.

“Do you like basketball?” Alex says.

Masako’s eyes follow Alex’s line of sight, and then she gives Alex a half-smile (and holy shit that’s pretty even if it’s not a real, full smile; for a moment Alex is completely disarmed). “I don’t think I’d get a phone case like that if I didn’t.”

Alex shrugs. “I don’t know. People have done weirder things.”

Masako raises an eyebrow. “I suppose.”

“So do you play?”

“A little,” says Masako. “Recreationally. Why?”

Alex can’t stop herself from full-out grinning. “I do, too. Just street ball, and only when I can.”

Masako’s half-smile returns. “In that case, we might see each other on the court at some point.”

“I’ll win,” says Alex, half-playfully (but half-seriously, too, because even if under her button-down shirts and dress slacks Masako’s all muscle, Alex isn’t going to go down that easily to someone five inches shorter than her).

“We’ll see,” says Masako, mouth twisting as if she’s trying to hide a full smile from breaking out.

“Is that a challenge?” says Alex, leaning over the table.

“No,” says Masako.

Her cheeks are red, and maybe it’s not outside the realm of possibility that she’d like it to be a challenge. Maybe if Alex keeps talking, keeps nudging her, she’ll go for it. And this isn’t the kind of wild, fantastical maybe that even getting to this point with Masako had seemed to be yesterday. This is solid; this is real; this is going somewhere. And Alex is on board with that.


End file.
